You might get more sales if...

You might get more sales if the thumbnail image looks similar to the theme.

I browse the newly released themes via the rss feed so I never see the icon. If there is something I know a client will like, I bookmark it, but if a client makes a request and I know I saw something similar on Themeforest, it can be very time consuming to re-discover it by viewing the thumbnails (and sometimes the preview) if they don’t reflect the theme.

i think is true! im also atracted to go and see a website when the thumbanail attracts me, it has a lot to do, i always try to make mines attractive and trying to represent the product as much as possible!

digitalimpact – In google reader, if you click on the title of the theme, the theme page opens so it can be viewed. If at a later time, I want to go back and find a theme I saw previously, it can be difficult to narrow it down by looking at the thumbnails. Thumbnails are not displayed in google reader…but that’s another issue.

FullTank – Ya…I don’t expect anyone to shrink the entire site down to 80×80….my request is that the thumbnail “represent the product” (to quote katrosixteen). As an example, if you have a light and simple theme, it would be nice if the thumbnail at the very least, looked light and simple as well. I use the rss feeds for wordpress and site themes because I don’t want to risk missing out on a new release.

Last night I had a free hour and looked through various parts of the Envato network searching for stuff that might help me/my clients in the future and then bookmarking.
As I only had an hour I took the 80×80’s as a quick decider and if it looked good I hovered; I didn’t hover over any avatars that didn’t preview the theme (you cant fit it all in but you can zoom in and give us an idea) and those that I DID hover over were quickly dismissed if the preview image was more a showcase of design skills than actually showing me what the template is all about.

Maybe you think I’m impatient but I’ve heard that the average person scans a newspaper no more than 8 seconds before they decide if it’s interesting, I think it’s even less than that online.

Funny – What are you going to ask for next? McDonald’s to actually post true to life images on their billboards? Sheesh!
I can guarantee you they’d sell a lot less hamburgers that way

All kidding aside, I think this really is something that a lot of authors should be more considerate about. I don’t think you can fit an accurate representation in the 80×80, but it should at least be enough to draw the user in and inform them about the spirit of your product. I happen to use the Preview graphic to display the same kind of material – sometimes it’s a screenshot, sometimes it’s just a teaser graphic to get a user to click the full preview. Either way, how an author approaches preview graphics and descriptions has a lot to do with their initial sales momentum.